When is it OK to post an update to an open thread?

November 26, 2013 7:14 PM

Apologies if this comes off as test-post-ish, but I am wondering if there are any unwritten guidelines around when it is OK to post an update on the blue, particularly if there was a former post about the subject and that post is still open.

The specific example I have is this post, and this update. People have already begun talking about the update in the thread, but as you can see the update came 6 days after the OP put the post up and it is probably safe to speculate based on the comment trail-off that significantly less people will get the update in-thread. I thought an update to the front page might be warranted given that we had a lot of vitriol for the customers and thousands of people (perhaps some of our own) have made donations to the server who is now in question.

The only specific guidelines in the FAQ I found are: "If there is a post on a similar topic still on the front page, please post your link into the open thread instead of starting a new post," but this seems a bit hard-and-fast in a situation where people may want to actually be updated that might otherwise miss out. If there is a previous MeTa out there on this topic, my search fu is weak - so please feel free to point me there if that's better.

posted by allkindsoftime to Etiquette/Policy at 7:14 PM (35 comments total)

People follow threads in Recent Activity a lot of the times so it's always a good idea to start there. It's not a good idea to make a test post MeTa about it (it's fine, absolutely fine, to email us) which this looks like specifically because you posted the update here, instead of just "I have an update" People have been commenting in that thread all day. I think it's fine to leave it there since this is much more an internet-drama situation than some sort of serious political or otherwise Big News thing.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:21 PM on November 26, 2013

Yes, just to agree with jessamyn -

First, a lot of people read the site via Recent Activity, which means they will see updates to threads they posted in last week.

Second, I think this specific example is a kind of narrow interest story, such that an update is mainly of interest to people who caught the story the first time around.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 7:21 PM on November 26, 2013

It's an update. It's not nearly substantial enough on its own to be a full FPP. Therefore it should be an update, regardless of how recent the original FPP was. The fact that the original is only a week old just seals it.
posted by alms at 7:46 PM on November 26, 2013

23.2 days after the OP.
posted by Drinky Die at 7:47 PM on November 26, 2013

Post was originally made on Nov 18th, so not sure how DD is calculating days. I saw it in Recent Activity but didn't comment again as I had nothing to say.
posted by arcticseal at 8:33 PM on November 26, 2013

My sense is it is more of a development and notoriety thing. If its a big story and there have been big changes, not just continued development in the same direction, then a new thread is appropriate. But when liveblogging of a hunt for marathon bombers or an election is going on, no new thread.

for example Rob Ford Denies Cocaine Rumor can get a new thread when it becomes Rob Ford admits smoking crack.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:54 PM on November 26, 2013

Got it, should have emailed you, sorry. Feel free to close this up and please have a nice long weekend.
posted by allkindsoftime at 9:39 PM on November 26, 2013

Out of sheer curiosity (feel free to not entertain it and get on with holiday weekend, etc.), is there any sense of how many people read the blue (or green) via Recent Activity rather than the front page? Do most people read via RA? Have I been doing it wrong all this time? I always assumed that reading via RA meant you might miss stuff nobody cared to comment on.
posted by allkindsoftime at 9:52 PM on November 26, 2013

I read by both. But if I'm involved in a couple-three busy threads, I spend more time in RA than on the front pages.
posted by rtha at 10:11 PM on November 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

Not sure what you mean - I think people do both. Recent Activity just shows new comments on posts that you yourself have commented in. (Maybe you are thinking of Recent Comments?)
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:17 PM on November 26, 2013

Here's the FAQ entry about Recent Activity.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:24 PM on November 26, 2013

I don't find Recent Activity an entirely satisfying way to monitor the site, though I probably would if we could manually add threads to the recent activity list regardless of whether we've commented in them yet. Merging in the "My Favorites" tab with "My Activity" could probably yield a roughly similar effect, though that would probably make some people who like the current functionality complain, and assumes that everything you favorite is something you'd want to follow.
posted by tonycpsu at 10:55 PM on November 26, 2013 [4 favorites]

I rarely use recent activity, and generally find that when I go back into posts where something significant has happened there a few days is very little update activity.

I understand why MeFi sticks to the post in the original FPP to stop the site becoming NewsFilter or UpdateFilter but but by the same token, updates are things_we_don't_do_well except for the monster threads on Big_Events.
posted by MuffinMan at 12:56 AM on November 27, 2013

i love recent activity (and i love it being separate, but right next to, my favorites). i find the threads i participate in often have movement long after the first burst of comments happen.
posted by nadawi at 5:33 AM on November 27, 2013

Recent Activity is the way to go. Six days really isn't that long of a gap, either, especially since IMHO the updates to the story in question aren't so radical so as to warrant a separate FPP.
posted by Sticherbeast at 6:48 AM on November 27, 2013

I would love a way to monitor a thread in a way that doesn't require commenting to do so. Is there a way to do this that I've missed? Favorites don't quite work for this.
posted by SpacemanStix at 7:22 AM on November 27, 2013

SpacemanStix - have you clicked on the other tabs in recent activity? specifically "my favorites"? it was years before i noticed that was there.
posted by nadawi at 7:25 AM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

Out of sheer curiosity (feel free to not entertain it and get on with holiday weekend, etc.), is there any sense of how many people read the blue (or green) via Recent Activity rather than the front page?

Like folks have said, it's not really a one-or-the-other thing; RA is a handy way to keep track of something you already started reading (and discussing) from the front page. It's a handy way to track ongoing discussions, not a discovery tool for them. I find it pretty handy because I often have not so much to say in an ongoing fashion in threads I have a comment for but rarely comment in a thread that I'm not interested in the followup conversation in. I say my bit, RA keeps me apprised of what's going on in the various threads I'm watching, sorted. Anything that I'm tired of, I use the "remove from activity" link to ditch the thread.

We don't have super specific stats on who is using RA how much, but pb may be able to cull some at least general stats from the analytics stuff. In general I think a lot of regular readers use it as part of how they keep up with the site, in combination with actually finding threads in the first place by visiting the front pages more directly.

I would love a way to monitor a thread in a way that doesn't require commenting to do so.

Like nadawi just referenced: the My Favorites tab on the Recent Activity page does with favorited posts what the default RA activity does with commented-in posts. Favorite it, bam, it'll keep getting updated on that tab automatically. It's not as slick as having a one-stop-shop sort of deal, but if you find that "I don't want to say anything but I do want to follow this" is a common use case for you, it can be a handy solution.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:30 AM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

Looking at the last 30 days worth of members data the front page is far and away the most visited page. 37% of all views are the front page. The next most visited page is Recent Activity with 4.6% of all views. After that it goes to specific individual threads. The Rob Ford thread was the next most visited page with .8% of all traffic.
posted by pb (staff) at 7:36 AM on November 27, 2013

There hasn't been a satisfactory solution to the problem of updates since usenet, where threads stayed open forever and you could post to any ancient thread just by using (exactly) the same Subject: header line. Threaded readers could dredge up all the previous posts with that Subject: line that still existed in the newsspool on the system where you were reading. Many big sites (universities and so on) maintained newsspools that went back essentially to usenet year 0. No current technology I know of can match this; message sites have become Balkanized. Some are pretty big, of course, but Twitter Year 0 or even Facebook Year 0 doesn't reach very far back.


> Out of sheer curiosity (feel free to not entertain it and get on with holiday weekend, etc.), is there any sense of how
> many people read the blue (or green) via Recent Activity rather than the front page?

I check the front page (green, blue, grey) for new posts, and then go to my own recent comments a couple of different ways just to see if anyone has responded directly to anything I said.
posted by jfuller at 7:45 AM on November 27, 2013

SpacemanStix : you can subscribe via RSS to any thread whether you have commented in it or not. I almost always read Metafilter posts via feed reader, and click through to the site to read comments. To get notified about new comments in a thread, click on the 'subscribe' link next to the date and time, under the title. I do this especially when I'm hoping to hear an update from the OP.
posted by QuakerMel at 8:00 AM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

well, part of the problem with leaving things on the whole internet open, vs usenet, is that enterprising little shits like to see what sort of things they can fuck with by inserting script or spam or what not into old threads, which is a far bigger use than people using those threads to actually update stuff. at least that's my understanding of it...
posted by nadawi at 8:05 AM on November 27, 2013

FWIW, I check Recent Activity quite frequently — often I go to the Green first (that's the one I have bookmarked) and from there Recent Activity is often my second stop, before the Blue or the Gray. I've used the "My Activity" (the default) tab for, I don't know, probably almost as long as it's been there; more recently (within the past year or so) I've been making a habit of checking the "My Favorites" tab to keep up with discussions I hadn't participated in but wanted to follow.

Which means I sometimes favorite threads for the sole reason of having them appear in Recent Activity/My Favorites. That took a bit of conscious behavior modification when I first started doing it, but it's not a huge hassle. If it bothers you to have it marked as a favorite long-term, maybe because you use favorites for other things too, you can always unfavorite it after the thread has closed. I don't feel the need to do this, but I will sometimes unfavorite a thread I'm following that way if I later comment in it, so it doesn't show up on both tabs.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:22 AM on November 27, 2013

I would love a way to monitor a thread in a way that doesn't require commenting to do so.

Just post a string of barely coherent obscenities. That's the international official metafilter code for 'I want to follow this in recent activity'. Everyone will understand, don't worry, just bear in mind that confused or upset responses are the international official metafilter code for 'I would also like to follow this in recent activity' and you should be fine.
posted by Ned G at 8:28 AM on November 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

would love a way to monitor a thread in a way that doesn't require commenting to do so.

Just post a string of barely coherent obscenities. That's the international official metafilter code for 'I want to follow this in recent activity'. Everyone will understand, don't worry, just bear in mind that confused or upset responses are the international official metafilter code for 'I would also like to follow this in recent activity' and you should be fine.

Should be a Saumuel L. Jackson rant, preferably.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:39 AM on November 27, 2013

On a similar subject, I wish there was a way to repost certain already posted posts. Because if you could, I'd nominate Miko's Ultimate Alice's Restaurant post to be miraculously re-posted as an FPP today.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:05 AM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

SpacemanStix - have you clicked on the other tabs in recent activity? specifically "my favorites"? it was years before i noticed that was there.

That's pretty slick, and really helpful. Thanks for pointing this out.
posted by SpacemanStix at 9:18 AM on November 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

On a similar subject, I wish there was a way to repost certain already posted posts.

We can sure BestOf/sidebar 'em, at least!
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:36 AM on November 27, 2013 [2 favorites]

Yay!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:39 AM on November 27, 2013

I've always figured that Recent Activity probably didn't reach most of the userbase, especially lurkers. However, I see this as more of a problem (and even here I'm not sure what a better solution would look like) for long-tail threads that tend to devolve into a discussion between like three or four people who are following via RA.

For update-related information where it's less important to tell the whole site about it than it is to make sure that the people who are actually interested in the original thread do, I feel like RA (plus just manually checking the thread, for folks who are oldschool like that) is probably a good solution.

Basically, I guess the rule of thumb is that if an update wouldn't stand on its own as a good FPP in the absence of whatever earlier post it is related to, it's probably better to post it in the earlier thread. If it's a worthwhile post in its own right and it hasn't already been substantially covered by an earlier thread, then follow the same guidelines you'd use for any other post.

Exceptions include things like giant longboat threads (such as the ones we get during US presidential election season) where the sheer number of comments can just get unwieldy, warranting a shift to a new thread based on more recent coverage.
posted by Scientist at 12:10 PM on November 28, 2013

That said, I'd love it if Recent Activity were made more prominent on the page (and given a more explanatory name like "Thread Updates" or something, I dunno) and if there were a way to include similar functionality for non-members through some kind of cookie-based feature.

I realize this is probably a non-starter of an idea and I'm not about to plant my flag on this hill and start laying down concertina wire or anything, but if I were King of MetaFilter that's how it would be.
posted by Scientist at 12:15 PM on November 28, 2013

if there were a way to include similar functionality for non-members

Yep, it's resource intensive and a non-starter. It doesn't even make sense, since non-members can't comment in threads or favorite threads, how would this even work? All the threads have RSS feeds associated with them and people can follow along with those if all they want is a "recent comments in threads I care about" feature, but there's a lot of server overhead that goes into building this page, so we're not planning on making it available to more people.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:46 PM on November 28, 2013

I'd call it a non starter even if it wasn't resource intensive. Non paying users get plenty of benefits as it is. A cookie based solution would basically involve implementing a bunch of stuff for people who either won't appreciate the feature, or ask questions via email when it doesn't work between mobile browser to desktop or after clearing cookies. Plus it would only be as good as "here are some threads you've read!" unless you built a sort of stateful system where they essentially can favorite threads without being logged in. I like talking about non starters
posted by lordaych at 1:13 PM on December 2, 2013

I realize my dichotomy was false and tribal in nature and some users would appreciate it and know exactly how to use it. But still, fork up the $5, it's part of the awesomeness.
posted by lordaych at 1:15 PM on December 2, 2013

Well hey, looks like my wish is actually sorta granted. The ability to follow older threads via RSS is something I hadn't even contemplated, and that's really all I was talking about as far as RA functionality for non-members. I would imagine very few non-members are actually using that functionality, but it cheers me to know that it's there. And probably some folks who are members but who for whatever reason aren't always logged in do get some use out of it, so that's good!

So hey, turns out my silly wish is already pretty muchtaken care of! It must be Christmas time!
posted by Scientist at 4:40 PM on December 2, 2013